If you
show a real interest in the church, you will find the pew-opener or
verger pleased to let you see everything, not only the monuments and
the carvings in the church, but also the treasures of the vestry, in
which are preserved many interesting things--old maps, portraits, old
deeds and gifts, old charities--now all clean swept away by the
Charity Commission--ancient Bibles and Prayer-books, muniment chests,
embroidered palls, old registers with signatures historical--all these
things are found in the vestry of the City church.
Then there are the churchyards. We are familiar with the little oblong
area open to the street, surrounded by tall warehouses, one tomb left
in the middle, and three headstones ranged against the wall, patches
of green mould to represent grass, and a litter of scraps of paper and
orange-peel. This is fondly believed to be the churchyard of some old
church burned down or rebuilt. There are dozens of these in the City;
it is sometimes difficult to find out the name of the church to which
they once belonged. Every time a building is erected adjacent to them
they become smaller, and when they happened to lie behind the houses
they were shut in and forgotten, covered over and built upon when
nobody was looking, and so their very memory perished.
Pages:
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92